Runner (Completed)

Beginnings [A]

I could hear the sound of glash shattering seconds before a flashbang went off less than five feet away from me. The light blinded me still while my ears couldn't stop to ring like a siren. I opened my eyes to only catch a small, blurry glimpse of a man storming through the front door. Guns on both his hands. Today was the day. I had foreseen it many times, just not as violent and surprising as what was going on. It felt like only yesterday that I had discovered time travel, and it took them exactly a day, four hours, twenty five minutes and seven seconds to find me. I took the modified SVGB400 watch I tinkered with the other day and set the time to fifteen minutes before five in the morning. Two hours back. All at once, I felt a force ripping what I thought was my soul off my body and being slammed back into it. Two hours earlier.

I didn't graduate with flying colours, but it didn't stop me from venturing into the unknown. Yesterday, when I was at my study, I found out a way to manipulate the earth's wave frequency, and while doing so, it grants me the ability to manipulate time itself. At that time, all I could imagine was the destructive power it could provide in the wrong hands, and so I kept my discovery to myself, and make sure it stays away from the masterminds of the criminal underworld.

I managed to go two hours back, pack my things and left my house for good. I destroyed all my research and everything that could help them recreate the experiments I had done. I created a small trap for the man who would swing by, and by the time I was halfway to the airport, I could see a cloud of smoke emerging from the southside of the city. The man was presumably dead, because for all I know, no one survives explosions. As soon as I reached the airport I hurried and bought tickets to Tibet, which I still have no idea why I had chosen that place out of the hundreds I could have gone to instead.

Ever since that day I've been running. I don't know where I'm headed, but I know that one day these people will be back, and escape would not be an option if they find me.

That was three years ago.

______

The alarm had been blaring for the last five minutes, but I awoke to the small earthquake that was almost impossible to feel. Its pretty normal around here, especially when the plates underneath are so restless they never stop moving. I look out the window to see Mount Eyjafjallajokull just sitting there. The quite room in which I slept in became wider, or so it seemed. I blinked a couple of times, before getting off the bed and went in the shower. The water was as cold, just like the morning breeze, but it was the perfect temperature. Today was supposed to be another day in my life as a runner. Another day of cooking my own food and another day of watching the same channel, another day to tinker around with my watch, and another day to hear a knock on the door?

I stopped climbing down the stairs, and focused my hearing on the wooden door plastered at the front of the house.

There was another knock.

I walked slowly towards the door and looked through the peephole and saw two men, or women? It wasn't very clear to distinguish the one from the other. They wore black suits and shades. It was like as if they wanted to hide everything about their appearance under their black suits. But there was something they weren't able to hide, or maybe they weren't trying to hide.

The two people at the other side of the door had carried firearms. I knew what was about to happen. I shouted a quiet " I'm coming." and went straight back up to get my watch. The day had come. I knew that I couldn't escape this time. I don't want to escape. I must retaliate, or they wouldn't stop coming to me.

I am not certain of victory and I am not certain that I would be able to fend them off, but the time is now. As I opened the door, I looked away from them and turned on a flashlight I created two years ago that is enough to blind a person in an instant. After I felt that it was enough I turned off the flashlight, stole their guns and ran for the woods. If I were to fight my pursuers, then I would do it on the place I'm most familiar with.

I have prepared the battlefield. With the trees to cover almost all the light around, it was the perfect place for the hunted to become the hunter. There were traps everywhere and there was a podium up on the mountain where I could slowly and silently take them all out one by one. I might be a physicist, but everything I have been through has led me to undergo various training, including short range and long range combat. After setting up campground, I waited.

The silence was unbearable. It could mean that they have given up on me, or that they already have me on their grasp, and right now I'm pretty sure it's the latter. The night grew darker and darker with every minute I spend waiting for anyone to show up. Suddenly I saw a flash of light somewhere in the distance. I couldn't make out what it was but by the time I heard it, it had already hit me in the shoulder. A shot was fired, and I have been hit. I scoped back to the light source and found him.

No, her. Her auburn hair fell on her shoulders and her eyes were as black as the midnight sky. The moon made her face shine as bright as the stars. I was so deep in thought that I didn't hear her take the next shot, which to my luck, missed. I quickly make a run out of the woods and try to forget about my recent encounter. If there was anything that could stand between me and my survival, it would be her.

I quickly got into my car as soon as I fled the woods. I didn't take the keys of the ignition, which was fairly dumb, but I find it very fortunate that I didn't. Quickly, I turned the engine on and I raced through the street to get to my safe house. It isn't really a safe house, as the 'safe' house is a house from the eighteen hundreds, which meant that the roof could collapse at any time. It's still a safe house because no one knows it exists, yet.

I got inside the house and ripped my shirt open. The wound hadn't start to worsen and I still have time to heal it. I quickly got my dad's spare alcohol and I poured it on the bullet wound. It felt a hundred times worse than when the bullet actually entered, drilled through my skin and flesh, and out from the back. With my hands I lit up a match and threw it to the pile of wood at the base of the house's chimney, before hovering a knife above it.

Breathing in and out was easy, but it wasn't enough to calm me down as I burned the wound.

After I cleaning the wound and patching myself up, I heated up some water, poured it into a cup of instant noodle I had kept in stock for the last three months, and sat on my sofa with the TV on. Before the instant noodle was ready, I was already sound asleep.

The day after, when I woke up, I'm in the trunk of a SUV, silenced. I look at my wrist and find my watch is still there. I let out a sigh of relief and set my watch 8 hours back, to the time where I was still watching TV, before falling asleep. This time, I gobbled up my dinner, got back in my car and drove towards the airport. The last time I did this, I hitched a ride on a plane not knowing where it's headed and I ended up here. But this time I know exactly where I'm going.

I'm headed for New York City. Home.